If you read my last column, you know that my 6-year-old likes to wait until we are in the car and I can’t just run away when he asks me questions I simply don’t want to answer.
Here’s this week’s anxiety-inducing interrogation:
“Hey, Mom?” Mikey’s voice popped up from the back seat, over the sound of the wind blowing in through the windows.
“Yeah, buddy?”
“How many pounds to you weigh?”
……… Seriously, kid?!
“Mom?” he asked again.
“Yeah, I heard you. Uh, I don’t know how much I weigh… How much do you weigh?”
In the rearview, I could see him thinking it over. “I forgot.” Silence, and then, “But, if I say I forgot, it means I did know, but now I don’t remember. You said you don’t know.”
Keeping to myself the fact that I am purposely remaining ignorant as to the number on the scale, I told him, “Well, I probably should have said I forgot, because I’m sure I did know at one time, but now I don’t remember.”
More silence. More thinking.
“Well, how many pounds do you think you weigh? ’Cause I bet you weigh, like, 100 pounds. Do you think you weigh 100 pounds?”
“Yes. Yes, Mikey, I think I probably weigh 100 pounds.”
More silence. More thinking. “Oh… That’s a lot.”
Oh, kid, if you only knew…
But the car ride isn’t the only time the child likes to elicit brain games. Bedtime is another occasion.
The other night, from the living room, I heard his voice calling to me from his bedroom. “Mom” … “Mom!” … “Mooooooommmm!!!”
I stomped into his bedroom, noting the hour – well after an appropriate time for a child his age to be asleep. “What?!” I practically hissed from the door.
He shot straight up. “Did you know that George Washington is on the $1 bill? The other guys are on the other money, but they are all dead.”
I stood there stunned for a moment, wondering if his brain short-circuits at the end of the day and just starts rapid-firing useless knowledge around whatever lobe or cortex is responsible for intelligence, or if this was just a very complex stall tactic.
“First of all,” I began, “George Washington is also dead, so that doesn’t make sense.”
“But, Mom–”
“Nope!” I threw my hand in the air. “This is not a discussion we are having right now. Go to sleep.”
“But Mom–”
“No. Go to sleep.”
“Wait, just listen–”
“Go… to… sleep!”
He huffed. “Fine, but can you ask Dad to look at his money, and tomorrow morning he can tell me who is on his dollars.”
“Yep, sure thing.” I left, again keeping my thoughts to myself – that if either of us actually has any dollars in our wallets, it would be a miracle.
And then there are the times the kid just likes to call it as he sees it. This week it was as our very friendly, elder neighbor passed right by as Mikey was riding his scooter and I was walking alongside him.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Yeah, buddy.”
“Do you know what’s allegal?”
“Allegal? … Do you mean illegal?”
“Yeah. Allegal.”
“No, I don’t know what’s illegal. What is it?”
“It’s when you have hair that goes, like, around your head, but there’s like a big space on the top where there’s no hair. Like the man who lives in the gray house.”
I swallowed. He would definitely be referring to the neighbor who was most certainly still within ear shot of us.
Luckily, I heard and saw the man chuckle, so I assume he took the insult in stride.
Mikey went back to riding his scooter.
And I texted by bestie to tell her I wanted to die.
School can’t start back up soon enough!
Holly Crocco is editor of the Putnam County Times/Press and mother of a 6-year-old. She can be reached at editorial@putnampresstimes.com.
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